ERIC Number: EJ1013764
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013-May
Pages: 29
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0034-527X
EISSN: N/A
Integrated Literacies in a Rural Kenyan Girls' Secondary School Journalism Club
Kendrick, Maureen; Early, Margaret; Chemjor, Walter
Research in the Teaching of English, v47 n4 p391-419 May 2013
Our purpose in this paper is to foreground contextual issues in studies of situated writing practices. During a year-long case study in a rural Kenyan secondary school, we applied a number of ethnographic techniques to document how 32 girls (aged 14-18 years) used local cultural and digital resources (i.e., donated digital cameras, voice recorders, and laptops with connectivity) within the context of their after-school journalism club. We take inspiration broadly from the concept of liminal spaces, which we bring together with notions of placed resources, New Literacy Studies (NLS), multiliteracies, multimodality, and identity work. We argue that the learning space of the journalism club, including its mediating digital tools, affords identities of empowerment to students' writing and experimentation. On close examination of the transitional space of the journalism club, we see the foundational practices of situated rehearsal, appropriation, and performance of the roles and linguistic repertoires that the learners associated with competent journalists. We conclude that the club as a learning space, including its "props" and digital resources, fostered new degrees of freedom, community, equality, and creativity. We are left with questions about the characteristics of transitional learning spaces and how these might serve as fertile ground for growing competent writers in a range of educational contexts. (Contains 2 figures.)
Descriptors: Literacy, Foreign Countries, Case Studies, Rural Schools, Secondary School Students, Clubs, Journalism, After School Programs, Ethnography, Cultural Background, Video Equipment, Laptop Computers, Context Effect, Photography, Student Empowerment, Writing (Composition), Creativity, Freedom, Multiple Literacies, Single Sex Schools, Interviews, Public Officials, Activism, Social Change, Self Concept, Athletes
National Council of Teachers of English. 1111 West Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1096. Tel: 877-369-6283; Tel: 217-328-3870; Web site: http://www.ncte.org/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Kenya
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A